Perl XML::Simple and Data::Dumper - exists in Python?

[Wallace Owen]

Miguel Manso wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> I'm a Perl programmer trying to get into Python. I've been reading some 
> documentation and I've choosed Python has being the "next step" to give.
> 
> Can you point me out to Python solutions for:
> 
> 1) Perl's Data::Dumper
> 
> It dumps any perl variable to the stdout in a "readable" way.

All Python objects support reflection and can be serialized to a data 
stream.  There's about four ways to do it (Kinda perl-like in that 
regard, but typically for a particular application there's one obvious 
right choice).  You control the way your objects appear as strings, by 
defining a __str__ member function that'll be invoked if the user does:

% print str(yourObject)

You can print any builtin type with just:

 >>> lst = ["one", "two", (3, 4.56), 1]
 >>> print lst
['one', 'two', (3, 4.5599999999999996), 1]
 >>>

> 
> 2) Perl's XML::Simple
> 
> It maps a XML file into a Perl data structure.

Python's got a Document Object Model lib that essentially maps an XML 
file to objects that have built-in-type behavior - you can treat a 
NodeList object as a python list, indexing into it, iterating over it's 
contents, etc.

It's also got SAX and expat bindings.

> 
> Does Python have something like these two tools? I've been googling 
> before posting this and didn't find anything.

Do your searches at python.org.


   // Wally